What is the best time to show ads?

There are a lot of guides, tips and studies to tell you when the best time to tweet or to show ads online. These apply to Facebook Ads and Google AdSense. However, when it comes to content, there is no clear guidance on what you should show your readers, and at what time. CodeFuel, an engagement and monetization suite for publishers and Nielsen conducted an online survey, published in September 2016 that looked at ad consumption preferences for users when visiting websites.

It is getting harder and harder to get and keep the attention of users. More and more users are consuming content on mobile, where they are constantly interrupted by notifications and messages. The one way to keep their attention: show them the content they are looking for at the right time.

One of the things to the study looked at was what readers are looking for at different times of the day:

In the morning

73% come just to get the latest updates
16% are taking a break
6% visit content sites for work/study
5% don’t visit content websites at this time

At noon

40% come just to get the latest updates
43% are taking a break
9% visit content sites for work/study
8% don’t visit content websites at this time

During the afternoon

47% come just to get the latest updates.
29% are taking a break
15% visit content sites for work/study
10% don’t visit content websites at this time

At night

46% come just to get the latest updates
27% are taking a break
6% visit content sites for work/study
22% don’t visit content websites at this time

Based on this, content producers can target content for specific times of the day. Take noon for example, since a majority of users are coming for a break from work, the content and the ads can both target a lighter tone and be entertainment related.